Josef DeSimone

[Background: Formerly executive chef at Café de la Presse at the Trident Hotel in San Francisco, California; tasting judge at the American Culinary Institute; attended Johnson & Wales Culinary School in Charleston, South Carolina; trained for four months at the Vermeer in Holland; worked at restaurants during high school in Miami Beach, Florida.]

THE MENU CHANGES DAILY

"I've worked everywhere from family-style to Michelin-caliber restaurants, and I've never seen anything like Google. Nobody changes the menu daily on this scale. Seventeen cafés. Thousands of meals. It's unheard of. I thought corporate food was premade sauces and things dumped out of cans. But it's not like that. We cook from scratch.

I used Google in college, but I didn't know a lot about the company when I started here. I just liked the philosophy of the kitchen. My impression was, 'Wow, you hire a guy who's an expert in food and let him run with it! You don't get in his way or micromanage.' After a year or so, I realized this is the way everything works here."

FOOD VALUES

"We came up with a values system. We said we want local. Then it was local, fresh, and sustainable. Then it was local, fresh, sustainable, and organic. We're giving money back to the local mom-and-pop businesses. We're not sending it to the giant conglomerates. We don't want genetically modified organisms or nitrates. We don't want MSG. We're not going to have GMOs here. Genetically modified organisms. We're the first company to go global with cage-free eggs. McDonald's is proposing to do this by the year 2010. We've already done it."

FOOD WITH A MISSION

"John Dickman, the brain trust behind food service, told us, 'This is your platform to educate and change things, not just here, but abroad. It's your time to make a difference, to change how the world works. You may never have a chance like this again in your life. This is your soapbox.'

After one of my colleagues learned that a San Francisco burn treatment center got its funding cut, we threw a fund-raiser here. Press, senators, all these people come, and email starts flooding into the governor's office. Within a month, the center's funding got reinstated. That's because of the attention of the name of Google.

As John says, all you want to do is make a ripple. A ripple turns into a wave. A wave crashes on a shore. Things get changed."

EDUCATING A CAPTIVE AUDIENCE

"People from every department come to the cafés, so we get to influence everybody. Every table in our cafés has filtered water to keep you from using bottled water, along with a little sign that explains why. We're here to educate employees on why agave-based soda is better for you than Coca-Cola. If you still want the Coke, it's in the microkitchen, but the sodas that are offered conveniently are agave based. Our nutritionist does TechTalks on things like the difference between natural and refined sweeteners."

SOMETHING FOR EVERY TASTE

"Every café has its own concept. At Taste, we make food from a different region of the world every day. Today was Hawaiian, so the meat is Kahlua pig. At No Name, we went crazy with a nutrient-dense real healthy concept: raw, vegan, living cuisine. That means it hasn't been cooked over 108 degrees. It's things like living lasagna—thinly sliced vegetables, lightly marinated and creamed cashews for the cheese.

Other companies are always visiting. Top chefs too. Mario Batali. Sam Choy. Paul Prudhomme. Everybody walks away saying the same thing I said when I got here: 'I can't believe this is corporate food.'"

A STUDENT OF CULINARY DEMOGRAPHICS

"I keep a database on how everything sells. Some groups are more open to wilder game—venison, elk, rabbit. The sales building is predominately younger women, so you're talking salads, any vegetarian or vegan option. No Bambi animals. They're big on fish and chicken without the skin, sauce on the side. The frozen yogurt is a huge seller. Chocolate cake isn't. You go to engineering, and it's a lot more Asian, Indonesian. Fish with the skin on, lamb. Beef and pork are not going to be as popular."

INTERNATIONAL HOMECOOKING

"We've got people working at Google from all over the world, and we think about bringing a piece of everybody's culture here. We can't bring their families. But we can bring the food from Norway or India or Russia. We need to make them feel at home. I'll hit them up for their grandma's recipes."

GOOGLEPLEX CELEBRITIES

"I get joy from feeding people. If you come to my house, there's food and drinks the moments you walk in the door. For the first time in my career, I get to interact with the guests. Before I was always in the back, never in the dining room. Now I get stopped in the hall. 'Hey, chef, great barbecue today.' Or, 'Can I get that recipe for those raviolis?' A lot of the engineers have their own search engine to look for their favorite foods. They blog about the menus. It's like being a celebrity on campus. It's nice to know that you made an impact on that person's day."

A STEADY DIET OF PERSONAL GROWTH

"I never wanted to be an astronaut or a rodeo clown. I only wanted to cook. For me, this is Disneyland. Google has exposed me to new cuisines, new ways of life, new ideas and life philosophies. Where do you go from here?"

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